You need to print a retraction. Sharon Fowler at the University of Texas has already published an 8 year epidemiological study linking diet drinks to obesity. How could you have not done any homework. The Ramazzini Study in Italy (one of the most prestigious independent cancer research centers in Europe) proved in a three year study that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogen confirming FDA's original studies. Only the rats fed aspartame developed brain tumors!! http://www.wnho.net/new_aspartame_studies.htm We are now taking aspartame brain tumor cases in New York and New Jersey for litigation.

This is the reason the FDA revoked the petition for approval. Read
the commentary in the petition on how Rumsfeld called in his markers
to put an addictive excitoneurotoxic carcinogenic drug that interacts
with all drugs and vaccines on the market. http://www.wnho.net/fda_petition1.doc

Read the protest of the National Soft Drink Assn below [ these have been posted at: http://www.mpwhi.com/open_letter_dick_adamson.htm ] to understand that aspartame is illegal because it's adulterated which also
violates interstate commerce laws. It also violated the Delaney Amendment as Dr. Adrian Gross, FDA toxicologist, told Congress on 8/1/1985, because without a shadow of a doubt it causes brain tumors and brain cancer. He also said because of this FDA should not have been able to set an allowable daily dose. His last words to Congress were: "And if the FDA violates its own laws who is left to protect the public." http://www.wnho.net/whopper.htm

Grab a Diet Coke? I don't think so unless you want some of the neurodegenerative diseases, cancers, diabetes, obesity, etc. in the 1038 page medical text on the global plague, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, http://www.sunsentpress.com by H. J. Roberts, M.D. It also goes into birth defects and mental retardation and there is no warning. New statistics show 1 in 6 now born with neurological problems and 1 in 150 have autism which aspartame triggers. The prophecy of the renowned Dr. John Olney (Founded the field of neuroscience called excitotoxicity - Dr. Russell Blaylock,
neurosurgeon, wrote the book, Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills,
http://www.russellblaylockmd.com ) has been fulfilled. Read his 49 page report to the Board of Inquiry of the FDA on the front page of WNHO.

Read on below my signature. As a journalist you are responsible to do your homework, not accept industry propaganda. Note the last lines in the protest and you'll understand why aspartame has caused an epidemic of obesity. It also can precipitate diabetes, simulates and aggravates diabetic retinopathy, and neuropathy, destroys the optic nerve, causes diabetics to go into convulsions and interacts with insulin. Now you understand the epidemic of diabetes. There are safe sweeteners like Just Like Sugar, which you can get in Whole Foods or Wild Oats. An analysis has been run on this one which is made from chicory and orange peel. Perhaps pop shouldn't be used at all, especially since Coke has been shown to cause cancer itself. http://www.ramazzini.it/fondazione/docs/NYAS_Coca-Cola_Ramazzini.pdf

I notice you also write about sexuality. Aspartame destroys families. It's an endocrine disrupting drug that stimulates prolactin, changes the menses and causes infertility. So women wanting children sit in fertility clinics sipping Diet Coke. Even if they get off of it and get pregnant, and then get back on it, its an abortifacient, and a teratogen triggering birth defects and mental retardation. Even if a live child is born it may have heinously damaged the DNA for generations to come. The Trocho Study in Barcelona showed that the formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol not only damages DNA but embalms living tissue.

Aspartame causes male sexual dysfunction and ruins female response. http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_and_sexual_dysfunction.htm The phenylalanine in aspartame lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin triggering psychiatric and behavioral problems. It interacts with all anti-depressants. In fact, aspartame is a psycho drug.

Can you think of anything worse? It also triggers an irregular heart rhythm and interacts with all cardiac medication. It damages the cardiac conduction system and causes sudden death. http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_msg_scd.htm

And for those "grabbing a Diet Coke" because of your article, I would suggest you send Dr. Blaylock's detox program if you care anything about good health, preventing addiction and pre-embalming. www.wnho.net/wtdaspartame.htm There is a recovery center in Asheville, North Carolina that takes aspartame addiction. We will soon be adding to web Aspartame Detox Centers for the sick and dying on aspartame.